Mother is cray cray, but maybe some counseling or meds could help her. Sounds like she has a disorder similar to 'munchausen by proxy'. She liked the attention for herself and kid more than the money, but at least the kid did get to go to Disneyland.

Mark Ratner:Mother is cray cray, but maybe some counseling or meds could help her. Sounds like she has a disorder similar to 'munchausen by proxy'. She liked the attention for herself and kid more than the money, but at least the kid did get to go to Disneyland.

I'm finding it a little hard to believe that the father wasn't in on this, or did he really not think to, you know, go with his son to the hospital on at least one of the "... 317 days of chemotherapy, 7 days of radiation, multiple blood & platelet transfusions, monthly spinal taps, biopsies, and MRI's."

Sounds about like what politicians at the national level do. They say things people want to hear, even though they have no intention of following through on the promise. They're really all about enriching themselves and their immediate family, all while pretending to care about you, the voter.

Not that I think the kid would fare any better in gov't care if they took him away from the parents, but one just knows this kid's childhood is farked and wish something could be done about it to make it better.

LiteWerk:Sounds about like what politicians at the national level do. They say things people want to hear, even though they have no intention of following through on the promise. They're really all about enriching themselves and their immediate family, all while pretending to care about you, the voter.

Not to threadjack, but if running for office is all the probable cause you'd need to conclude I'm this sort of person, why the hell should I run for office and try to do an honest job to represent you?

I don't know about the rest of the country, but if you're represented by a sociopathic scumbag liar, you're getting just the sort of representation you deserve, because there sure ain't any altruistic upside to catering for your vote. Who the fark else would run for office in your district, then?

I don't get it.....I mean....all those charities and stuff are always talking about RAISING AWARENESS. I'm not sure how awareness helps fight cancer or whatever, but, certainly, this lady going around and raising awareness is a good thing, right?

I mean, sure, she raise $25k worth of awareness, which is far less than how much a CEO of a big charity for cancer gets....but she probably didn't do as good of a job either. So it's kind of a toss-up.

LiteWerk:Sounds about like what politicians at the national level do. They say things people want to hear, even though they have no intention of following through on the promise. They're really all about enriching themselves and their immediate family, all while pretending to care about you, the voter.

Surprisingly I've seen something like this firsthand. I had this roommate who brought his wife to stay with him for a month or two during the summer (he was an engineer) and she was a real biatch. Well, we looked her up online and she had a crowdfund thing going on where she's talking about how her husband has left her and is abusing her, and that she has cancer (facts we verified were not true). She raised thousands of dollars from people fooled on the internet. Best part? Her husband is a rich engineer, so she wasn't exactly lacking in money.

The 50 worst charities in America devote less than 4% of donations raised to direct cash aid. Some charities gave even less. Over a decade, one diabetes charity raised nearly $14 million and gave about $10,000 to patients. Six spent no cash at all on their cause, but of course that is legal.

I'm a big advocate of planning your charitable giving in advance, through thoughtful contemplation and research. It avoids the "D'awww puppies, take my money!" syndrome. Vermin like this lady are part of the reason why legitimate charities have such high overhead, because they have to weed out the frauds.